We have been called to serve as Family History Support Missionaries in the England, London Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We will serve in the London Family History Centre for 18 months beginning January 2011, assisting people with their family history.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Settling In…

Dear Family and Friends,

We have a sign-in clip board at the Family History Centre where the patrons sign in with their name, country of interest and mark a check if they are at the centre for the first time. Last week I was sitting at the desk by the clip board and reminded the patron to put a check if they were here for the first time. The patron looked at me with a very puzzled expression and wrote the word ‘check’ on the paper. Another example of the difference between the English we speak and that which is spoken in England. The English do not call it a check mark- it is a tick. Another difference- in our building we are in the basement. The next floor is the ground floor, then comes the mezzanine and finally the first floor which by my reckoning is really the third floor. We eat on the third floor which is really the fifth floor. Every time I get in the elevator I have to think about where I really want to go before I push the button. So we are settling in but continually discovering that a lot of things are very different.

Who Do You Think You Are?

This past weekend we were able to work at the FamilySearch Booth at the genealogical exhibition, Who Do You Think You Are? It was was held at the Olympia Conference & Exhibition Centre. Ancestry.com was the primary sponsor and all kinds of genealogical societies were represented.There werequite a few people out from Salt Lake to help at the booth that was set up with numerous computers to show people how FamilySearch and the LDS records can help with family history. People who are into family research are well aware of what our Church has done to preserve and make available early records of the British people. Our Centre alone has over 60,000 rolls of mircofilm of parish records dating to the early 1600’s and civil records. For many of those records, which were filmed quite a few years ago,the originals are now gone. People here give a lot of credit to the LDS Church for preserving their records.

Ken and I both had great experiences helping people understand how and where to search for ancestors. Ken was able to help a Jewish man who was searching for ancestors in Poland. I helped a man track down his grandmother who was born in South Africa and left an orphan when her parents died. She was taken back to a foundling home in England and later adopted. The Church actually has a record of her christening. It is wonderful to see the gratitude from people we are able to help. This happens every day on a smaller scale in our Family History Centre. This is a very rewarding mission!